README.md

ranger v.1.7.2

ranger is a console file manager with VI key bindings. It provides a
minimalistic and nice curses interface with a view on the directory hierarchy.
It ships with "rifle", a file launcher that is good at automatically finding
out which program to use for what file type.

This file describes ranger and how to get it to run. For instructions on the
usage, please read the man page. See HACKING.md for development specific
information. For configuration, check the files in ranger/config/ or copy the
default config to ~/.config/ranger with ranger's --copy-config option. The
examples/ directory contains several scripts and plugins that demonstrate how
ranger can be extended or combined with other programs. These files can be
found in the git repository or in /usr/share/doc/ranger.

A note to packagers: Versions meant for packaging are listed in the changelog
on the website.

Dependencies

Python (tested with version 2.6, 2.7, 3.1-3.5) with the "curses" module
and (optionally) wide-unicode support.

A pager ("less" by default)

Optional:

The "file" program for determining file types

The python module "chardet", in case of encoding detection problems

"sudo" to use the "run as root"-feature

w3m for the "w3mimgdisplay" program to preview images

Optional, for enhanced file previews (with "scope.sh"):

img2txt (from caca-utils) for ASCII-art image previews

highlight or pygmentize for syntax highlighting of code

atool, acat, bsdtar and/or unrar for previews of archives

lynx, w3m or elinks for previews of html pages

pdftotext for pdf previews

transmission-show for viewing bit-torrent information

mediainfo or exiftool for viewing information about media files

odt2txt for OpenDocument text files (odt, ods, odp and sxw)

Installing

Use the package manager of your operating system to install ranger.
Note that ranger can be started without installing by simply running ranger.py.

To install ranger manually:

sudo make install

This translates roughly to:

sudo python setup.py install --optimize=1 --record=install_log.txt

This also saves a list of all installed files to install_log.txt, which you can
use to uninstall ranger.

Getting Started

After starting ranger, you can use the Arrow Keys (or hjkl) to navigate, Enter
to open a file or type Q to quit. The third column shows a preview of the
current file. The second is the main column and the first shows the parent
directory.

Ranger can automatically copy default configuration files to ~/.config/ranger
if you run it with the switch --copy-config. (see ranger --help for a
description of that switch.) Also check ranger/config/ for the default
configuration.